LD A^3b 



KEV. DK. BETHUNE'S 
ADDRESS, 



BEFORE THE 



PHILOMATHEAN SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY 

OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

NOVEMBER, 1840. 



Vv— -t^^ C^'^Cw <,^-'«.^>.^l','>d*.-^.--, . 

^.v.^ ^^/.. -2^^. ^c-...-v— ^ 

AN ^.' W 



ADDRESS 



THE PHILOMATHEAN SOCIETY 



THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 



NOVEMBER 30th, 1840. 



GEORGE W, BETHUNE. 



•**^^^%W)%'*'*^f**'''~- 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED FOR THE PHILOMATHEAN SOCIETY, 

By John C. CTark, 60 Dock Street. 

1840. 



o^^f" 






-%\ hrt> 






-^S 



M.T. Fub. I-ito* 



Philadelphia, Dec. 1, 1840. 
Sir, 

It is our agreeable duty, on behalf of the Philomathean Society 
of the University of Pennsylvania, to communicate to you the fol- 
lowing Extract from the Minutea of a Meeting held on Tuesday 
morning, December 1. — "Resolved, That the thanks of this So- 
ciety be presented to the Rev. Dr. Bethune, for the eloquent and 
instructive Address delivered before us on Monday evening, Nov. 
30th, and that a copy be requested for publication." 
With much respect, 

We remain, yours, 

WM. E. LEHMAN, Jr. 
' • :B. B. REATH, 

HORATIO G. JONES, Jr. 
ALFRED B. TAYLOR, 
J. H. B. M'LELLAN. 
Rev. Dr. Bethune. 



Dec. 3, 1840. 
Gentlemen, 

According to your request, I send you the manuscript of my 
Address. 

Yours, with sincere regard, 

GEO. W. BETHUNE. 



Messrs. Wm. E. Lehman, jr., B. B. Reath, 
Horatio G. Jones, jr., Alfred B. 
Taylor, J. H. B. M'Lellan. 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen, 

Members of the Philomathean Society 

of the University of Pennsylvania, 

It was a happy inspiration which first suggested 
the delivery of these addresses. Happy it must be 
for you thus to be assured of sympathy from your 
elder brothers in study, and happy, I am sure, for us, 
who, covered with the dust of crowded thoroughfares, 
and worn with the burdens of public duty, are per- 
mitted to separate ourselves, though but for a brief 
hour, from the busy people, and retire again within 
the cool grove of academic life. We may not be al- 
lowed to say that we envy you your fresh spirits and 
classic exercitations, for it were unmanly and un- 
christian to shrink, even in thought, from the offices 
which God and our fellow men require at our hands, 
and sobriety of zeal best becomes them; but you 
cannot know, until you have felt it, the zest with 
which memory turns in after hfe to our growing 
years, and the intellectual Palaestra, where in gene- 
rous emulation we trained the sinews of our youthful 
minds, and warmed the courage of our hearts for the 
serious struggles of active manhood. To some of us 
the retrospect is sad; not that the days of our youth 
are gone by; it is the lot of mortals to change and 



6 

pass away; but that we availed ourselves so little of 
the fair occasions and rich opportunities which have 
gone with them. The time is yet yours when you 
may sow in hope. We are already gathering our 
harvest, and its scantiness too keenly convinces us, 
that the regrets and labours of later life can but 
poorly make up for the neglects of youth. 

It is in youth that the rudiments of knowledge 
must be laid deep within us, for which little time can 
be spared from the necessities of actual application. 
The proper purpose of education is not to acquaint 
the young mind with all that can be known; for the 
inquiring soul shall never cease learning in this life 
or the immortality which is to come; but to call its 
nascent powers forth into exercise, and furnishing 
the clew and methods by which inquiry may be 
wisely and most profitably pursued, to impel them 
on to the pursuit. The man, without such an ad- 
vantage, however studiously he may be inclined, is 
like one entering a vast library stored full of the best 
treatises and demonstrations, yet having no cata- 
logue by which to discover the volumes that contain 
the science he seeks. Uneducated genius may ac- 
complish nmch from its innate impulsiveness and 
foresight; but none can tell how much more it might 
have accomplished under the direction of sober rule; 
and the world has great reason to mourn over the 
time, the energy, and the paper, which has been 
worse than wasted by gifted men in the revival of 



exploded errors, and the assertion of crude though 
perhaps dazzUng hypotheses. But for such, man 
might have been ever going on in the vray of truth, 
instead of wandering so often after ignesfatui, which 
spring from darkness and unhealthy damps (^loci pa- 
ludosi et tetricosi)^ or being lost in the dust thrown up 
by scuffling polemics and their puppet-like partisans. 
That teacher makes a grave mistake who bids his 
pupils at once to think independently for them- 
selves. The human mind, so liable to err at sixty, 
is not infallible at twenty-one, or even before that 
important period. We must first be taught how to 
think. No mechanic would permit his apprentice to 
handle keen-edged tools at his own untaught discre- 
tion, as he might do more execution upon his own 
fingers than elsewhere; but the faculties of our minds 
are far more dangerous to ourselves than sharpened 
steel, and mental and moral suicide has often been 
the end of those who have used them in rash and ig- 
norant self-confidence. To think well we must know 
the rules of thinking; and the best method of learn- 
ing those rules, under the blessing of Heaven, is to 
inquire how the mighty minds of the past have 
thought before us. An itch after novelties is mis- 
taken by some for a sort of heavenly inspiration, 
lifting the soul above the necessity of those slow and 
vulgar methods, logic and induction, by which Aris- 
totle and Bacon crept towards the truth; but if we 
are forced to admit that there is any thing sacred 



8 

about it, let it be called ignis sacer, which is Pliny's 
name for St. Anthony's fire.* 

It is in youth those habits, which constitute cha- 
racter, should be carefully and religiously formed, that 
the time and pains necessary for the confirmation of 
the good may not be lost in correcting the bad, if in- 
deed they can ever be wholly eradicated. The lower 
tendencies of our nature early struggle to gain power 
over us, and can be repressed only by preoccupying 
the heart and mind with higher aspirations and en- 
gagements. Idleness is never long innocent. We 
must be doing something, and if what we do be not 
good, it will certainly be evil. 

Q,u8eritis ^gisthus, quare sit factus adulter 'i 
In promptu causa est, desidiosus erat.f 

Or, as quaint Richard Baxter says, (if it be not unlaw- 
ful to quote him so close to Ovid) " An idle man's 
brains are the devil's workshop;" which good Dr. 
Watts renders in his Divine Songs for Infant Minds, 
(a little book many grown persons might be wiser 
for getting by heart) 

Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do. 

But independently of this, the habit of labour is 
essential to success. The primeval curse, "In the 

-* Plin. xxvi. 11. t Ovid: Remed. Am. 161, 162. 



9 

sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," is upon us 
all, though by a wise submission it may be turned 
into blessing. 

It is true in the physical world Nil sine sudore. 
That is worth nothing which cost nothing. We may, 
perhaps, pass it upon the ignorance of others as of 
value, but we defraud them when we do so. Vain 
shall ever be found all expedients, however plausible, 
to enrich a country, otherwise than from the products 
of toil. Credit is very useful in its sphere, but pro- 
mises can never supply the place of what the earth 
yields only to the labouring hand. We can neither 
eat them nor wear them, nor can they long pay 
debts. But it is beyond the power of the worst 
tyranny to impoverish an intelligent and industrious 
people. That sense of self-approving independence, 
which springs from the consciousness of owing no 
man any thing, and of having earned one's bread, 
trains the soul to an indomitable courage; and the 
labour which gave it, has already nerved the arm to 
strike down the oppressor. The God of righteous- 
ness loves the honest man, and the God of battles 
fights on his side. It is he, whose self-imposed ne- 
cessities have made him dependent upon the caprice 
of others, whose hand is open to the bribe, but dares 
not grasp the sword. 

It is true in the moral world. There is but little 
merit in doing well when it is easy to do well. Our 
word virtue, from the Latin virtus, shows that its prac- 

B 



10 

tice demands courage and energy. " Better is he 
that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." It 
is easy to let loose the tiger in our hearts, and to 
grapple with a foe in desperation or hate; but it is 
hard to deny the uneasiness of evil desire, to beat 
down insurgent appetite, to crucify a bitter passion, 
to keep an unweary watch against subtle temptation, 
to maintain our integrity when we get no return from 
the world but malice, and to remain steadfast with 
the faithful few against the jeers of the profligate 
many. Fabricius with his dinner of herbs, after he 
had sent back the bribes of Pyrrhus, shows a better 
dignity than Coriolanus at the head of the Volscian 
armies before aflfrighted Rome; nor was the conquer- 
or of Hannibal ever so great as when he dismissed 
his Carthaginian captive safe in her unpolluted beau- 
ty. Such self-denial is not the impulse of a moment. 
It is the heroic triumph of long self-resistance. It is 
the noble ostentation of victory after many an inward 
battle. It is the blessed reward of labour, hard, con- 
stant, and unflinching, in rooting out pernicious sin, 
and in cultivating the impeded growth of good prin- 
ciples. Without the habit of such moral labour with- 
in ourselves, formed in youth, and assiduously cultiva- 
ted, we shall never have the nerve to resist a present 
temptation, nor the strength to persevere in the right 
and the honourable. 

I have spoken rather of the passive virtues, as 
they are called, than of the active, because those 



11 

are the more difficult and rare, and when they 
prevail in the soul, the others are never wanting. 
Obedience is best learned by the things that we 
suffer. The language of inspiration confirms this 
necessity of moral labour to the maintenance of suffi- 
cient virtue. He who would enter into the right way 
by the strait gate, must strive to put off criminal self, 
before his soul can find space to pass through. He 
that would attain immortal life and honour must be a 
follower until death of the Man of sorrows, who work- 
ed while it was day; who, as he went about doing 
good, kept up a constant fight with temptation, and 
who passed from the ignominy of the cross he had 
made illustrious by his meekness, to a coronation of 
glory as the Lord our Righteousness. It was not 
the fire that made the martyr, but the heaven-trained 
spirit which triumphed over the flame in the pureness 
of its charity. This " made the crowns of the suffer- 
ing ones splendid, gave them a majesty of shine and 
an imperial glory."* Their trials were first the school, 
and then the happy occasions of their virtue. They 
are now ranked before cherubim and seraphim, the 
most noble army of the living God. Those who die 
in the Lord are they who then " rest from their la- 
bours; and their works do follow them." Emulate 
their example, and you shall share in their reward. 
Nor forget that our own strength must ever be found 

* Richard Allestree. 



12 

unequal to the duty; but ask strength from on high, 
a right spirit and a new heart, the true mens divinior, 
which God alone can bestow. 

It is true in the intellectual world. The heights 
of science are steep, and to ascend them we must, 
like the mountaineer, be strong and sturdy. With- 
out a habit of patient application, no mind • has ever 
attained decided greatness in any walk. Such has 
been the progress of knowledge, that no genius, how- 
ever vigorous, can at once leap to the advance. 
Every new step onward (for I speak not of eccentri- 
cities to the right or left, which astonish the vulgar, 
and by none but them are mistaken for originality,) 
is more difficult than the last. We may easily be- 
come notorious by startling errors, but to excel in 
the one path of truth, which has been and is trodden 
by so many master spirits, nay, to follow them, even 
at a long interval, requires not only boldness but en- 
durance. That endurance cannot come except from 
a habit of labour, early acquired and steadily main- 
tained. Posse tollere taurum qui vitidum sustulerit. 
It was by beginning when a boy, to carry a suckling 
heifer, that the shoulders of Milo, the Crotonian, be- 
came strong enough to carry an ox. The Olympic 
Athlete was crowned, not for that day's victory, but 
for seven long years of determined, constant training, 
which enabled him to win it. Thus must the mind 
be disciplined. 

It has passed into a proverb, that precocious 



13 

youth rarely makes an able manhood; and some 
physiologists will say, that it is because the brain 
is early overwrought; but, generally, the true rea- 
son may be found in the want of this habit of 
labour. Facility of memory and quickness of per- 
ception render the lad's tasks easy and allow him 
much hurtful leisure for relaxing indulgences; while 
the growth of indolence is less marked from the 
readiness with which he excels his slower compa- 
nions; nay, often his over-anxious Mamma rather 
dissuades her prodigy from study, lest like the self- 
burning tree of Guinea he should be consumed by 
the fire of his own genius, and the world lose the ad- 
vantage of his mature greatness by such a melan- 
choly instance of spontaneous combustion. Natu- 
rally the idol of friends and teachers, he becomes 
presumptuous upon his powers, and contemns the 
necessity of steady exertion, until the severer trials 
of active life come upon him, and then it is too late 
to remedy the fatal neglect. The very dunce of his 
class, if industrious and persevering, will leave him 
far behind in respectable usefulness. It is in this 
way, that early talent, given by God as a blessing, 
is not unfrequently made a curse. There have been 
few great men who did not give promise of greatness 
in childhood. Melancthon at twenty-one was in 
Greek, the master of Luther, then a Doctor of Di- 
vinity. Luther hinself was noted for his youthful 
learning; and yet we do not find that either Melanc- 



14 

thon, or Luther, or Erasmus (most precocious of the 
three,) was made an idiot by an overwrought brain. 
It were most unkind to smile at the fears of fond 
parents; but they may rest assured, that there is 
less danger to their young Gracchi, to be apprehend- 
ed from laborious reading, than from surfeits upon 
sweetmeats and compliments, or a dandyism in pre- 
mature long coats and Chestnut Street exhibitions. 

Besides, without labour, we cannot acquire the 
power of abstraction^ so necessary to withdraw the 
inquirer from the temptation of present pleasure, the 
bias of prejudice, the corruption of selfish interest, 
and the many distracting impertinences of the sur- 
rounding world. To know truth aright, we must be 
€.lone and candid with it as the Christian with his 
God. We must understand our subject in all its 
bearings, yet stript of all delusive circumstances. 
We must collect our scattered thoughts, and con- 
dense them as through a lens upon it. But to do 
this, we must first have obtained an habitual mastery 
over our senses, passions, and faculties, which was 
never yet obtained without many a conflict. You 
know not, and God grant that you may never know, 
the inward anguish and shame which a mind, not un- 
conscious of natural force, but idle from habit, and un- 
furnished from idleness, feels, when seeing open op- 
portunities for honourable enterprise, it is compelled 
to forego the advantage, because unequal to an effort 
which others make with ease. Years of idle plea- 



15 

sure are dearly bought by one pang of such self- 
reproach. 

Shrink not then, my young friends, from labour. 
Wrestle mostly with the strong, and you shall your- 
selves be strong. It was a significant fable which 
made the founder of Rome the son of a god, but 
suckled him at no tender breast. His was a rough 
nurse, but a faithful one, and such is difficulty. God 
knows our frame, and, though he hath given us facul- 
ties to aspire, he hath made excellence the reward 
and attainment of educated strength, which grows by 
exertion. 

Pater ipse colendi 

Haud facilem esse viam voluit 

curis acuens mortalia corda.* 

It is the consciousness but too many of us feel, that 
we did not then sufficiently fix ourselves in these 
habits of industry, which saddens our memory of 
youth. Learn from our errors. Regard yourselves, 
even now, as the men who must soon bear the honour- 
able burdens of society, and as immortal men, the re- 
sponsible servants of a good but just God. Every 
hour carelessly wasted sows seeds of regret for future 
years. Every ^hour of earnest study shall yield fruits 
of mature satisfaction. Every hour of communion 
with God, and practice of his precepts by divine help, 
has the earnest of an eternal reward. 

* Virgil. Geor. I. 121—3. 



16 

But, while we make these confessions for your ad- 
vantage, a great comfort is left us. We did not, as 
many have done, and as you may be tempted to do, 
abandon the pursuit of a liberal education from tempo- 
rary weariness or disgust. It is but natural for a 
youth, full of fresh spirits, sometimes to tire of his 
quiet books, and persuade himself that such severe 
application to the study of science and letters is un- 
necessary to success in life; or that, from the win- 
dows of his seclusion, he should look with a degree 
of envy upon his equals in years, already bustling 
with Lilliputian self-importance about the precincts 
of trade. It is, however, very unhappy, if the parent 
yield to the solicitations of his inexperienced son, 
and permit him to withdraw from the honourable 
course, upon which he entered him with high hopes 
of his future distinction. Allow me to forewarn you 
against such ignoble weakness; and, if I may be 
heard by the guardians of your welfare, to dissuade 
them from consenting to such wishes, should they 
arise in your minds. 

Even should you not choose a learned profession, 
you will need all the advantages which a full course 
of liberal study can give you. I speak with all pos- 
sible respect for trade and commerce. The prejudice 
of dark ages, when a false aristocracy contemned 
labour in any form as a dishonourable necessity, is 
passing away, and should have no place in a philo- 
sophical or republican mind. To determine a man's 



17 

position in society by the honest calhng he follows in 
life, is as contrary to the justice of good sense, as it 
is to the genius of our political institutions. The 
petty distinctions of social rank, which have obtained 
in this country, excite the deserved ridicule of calm 
observers from other lands. Nothing can be more 
absurd than pride of family, in people who scarcely 
know the birth-place of their grandfathers; or an as- 
sertion of superior nobility, by one who sells cloth 
in packages, over another who sells ribands by the 
yard; or by the importer of bristles in hogsheads, or 
of hides in cargoes, over him who makes brushes or 
shoes; or by the professional man over either, when 
he is in reality the paid servant of all. We are 
members of one body, necessarily dependent upon, 
and contributive to each other's well-being. To look 
down upon a neighbour because his way of serving 
the community differs from our own, is to despise 
ourselves. We should own no superiority but that 
of age, worth, and wisdom. The highest officer of 
our government is entitled to honour only as he 
faithfully ministers to the people's good; and for 
one, without any reference to parties or individuals, 
I can see no humiliation in the retirement of a 
statesman, conscious of truth, from his lost magis- 
tracy to his farm; while I rejoice that there is but 
a single step from the log-cabin to the Capitol. It 
proves the working like leaven of that blessed doc- 



18 

trine which our fathers wrote upon the bond of our 
confederacy, the native equahty of the people. 
•%^ Yet, certainly, cultivated intelligence is, as it should 
be, necessary to real respectability. The mere mer- 
chant is little better than a common carrier, and the 
mere mechanic than an animated machine, convenient 
and useful in supplying the needs and luxuries of the 
community. To win our trust and deference, they 
must prove themselves mentally and morally worthy 
of it. It is when, leaving behind them with the dust 
of their warehouses and workshops the thirst for gain, 
they show a liberal sympathy and a wise zeal for so- 
cial advancement; when the wealth they may have 
acquired is devoted not to ostentatious display, but 
to the patronage of art, the furtherance of learning, 
science and religion ; and when the poor receive their 
unreluctant aid, the stranger their cheering hospital- 
ity, and every man their kindly courtesy, that we own 
them as brothers in their manhood, and venerate them 
as fathers after their heads are crowned with a right- 
eous hoariness. To acquire the elements of such a 
character some years may well be spent in cultivating 
a taste for graceful thought, habits of philosophical 
observation, and sound notions of Christian, political 
and economical ethics. 

It is sometimes said, that classical and kindred stu- 
dies, with the associations they inspire, unfit the mind 
for the business of a rude and sordid world; but on 
the contrary, their influence is greatly needed to re- 



'I 



19 

strain and chasten it from contamination. The youth, 
who enters upon the busthng scene before his heart 
and judgment are instructed in better things, and for- 
tified against temptation by generous thoughts with- 
in, soon may learn to regard dollars and cents as the 
gods of his idolatry, and, embracing the maxims of 
cunning selfishness which prevail around him, make 
his personal aggrandizement or low indulgence, the 
rule and aim of his endeavours. Far different will it 
be with him, whose leisure is spent with the books 
and intellectual converse he learned in early years to 
appreciate and love. He carries with him, wherever 
he goes, wise reflections on the past, large views of 
his social responsibilities, and aspiring hopes of a fu- 
ture and spiritual reward. Him, success will never 
make insane with pride, nor adversity overtake with- 
out strong consolation. 

Sperat infestis, metuit secundis, 
Alteram sortem bene preparatum 
Pectus * 

He can go forth from the ruin which is fatal to other 
men, like the philosopher of old from the burning city 
of his home, saying, " Me-ipsum porto," knowing that 
he has a wealth in his soul the world gave not and 
cannot take away. 

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the value of polite 

* Hor. Car. II. 10. 



20 

learning to the professional man. Without it he 
can never well sustain the position in society, which 
is accorded to his profession. Great talent and in- 
dustry are insufficient to cover entirely the defect, 
and, indeed, often make it more apparent. An illi- 
terate or half educated physician, lawyer or clergy- 
man, whatever may be his skill, acuteness or worth, 
is ever apt to betray his early disadvantages, and to 
be regarded with a pity not distantly allied to con- 
tempt; while, on the other hand, familiarity with 
good authors, gives an easy grace and smoothness 
to thought, language and even manner, which win, 
when stronger qualities might fail to force their way. 
The keenly polished scimitar of Damascus steel, in 
the hand of the slender but accomplished Saladin, 
was, as the instructive novelist tells us, a weapon 
not less effective than the mighty sword wielded by 
the giant strength of his lion-hearted rival. No one, 
who has had experience in these engagements, ever 
regrets an hour of his preparation, though many 
have lamented, when too late, having made it too 
brief. 

Nor become impatient, because required to pay 
such close attention now to rule and method. There 
can be no excellence without a fundamental know- 
ledge of those details; and early usage in such ele- 
ments is required, as Quintilhan expressed it, "Non 
modo acuere ingenia puerilia, sed exercere altissi- 



21 

man quoque eruditionem ac scientiam."* The astro- 
nomer, in calculating the return of a comet, combines 
the simple rules of arithmetic he learned at school, 
nor is the most accute logician independent of the 
first step in syntax. To reach the apex of a pyramid, 
the traveller must begin at the bottom and go up- 
ward step by step. Man was not made to fly, and 
he who trusts himself, like another Icarus, to the 
wings of an ill-regulated imagination, may chance to 
find a grave as deep though less famous than a bay 
of the iEgean. 

There is abundant time for this previous educa- 
tion. The fault of our youth is that of their coun- 
try. They grow too fast, and become men and wo- 
men too soon; and, like all hot-bed growths, they 
are likely to be weak in the core. Our girls have 
scarcely laid aside the bib of the nursery, before 
they are set at the head of households; and our lads 
assume the toga virilis, when as yet their prcetexta 
should descend usque ad talos. In the primitive ages 
the elders sat as magistrates and counsellors in the 
gate. The Hebrews fixed the entrance upon public 
life at thirty years of age, and the Athenians allow- 
ed none to speak in their democratic assemblies, un- 
til the men of more than fifty had spoken. But with 
us the man of fifty is looked upon as little better 
than superannuated, and is thrust aside by the strip- 

^ Quin. Ins. Orator. I. 2. 



22 

ling whose chin is unconscious of a razor, vociferous 
applause answering his tumid declamation and dash- 
ing theories. It is because of this error, and not the 
lack of original talent, that so many ruinous novelties 
spring up and die at such cost to the nation, and that 
so little true excellence, and so few thorough scholars 
are to be found among us. He, who delays his pub- 
lic duties until the gristle of his mind has been har- 
dened into bone, will be the more valuable servant of 
his country and ensure to himself a later but better 
fame. Be not impatient, young gentlemen. It is a 
long course and an arduous, that you have to run, 
and you shall lose nothing in the end by taking the 
advice I give you in sober earnestness, to " tarry 
here until your beards be grown." 

There are, however, doubtless those (though I 
trust none among you) who may, without loss to 
themselves or others, be permitted to leave an at- 
tempted but unfinished education. The youth, who 
feels no sacred thirst for knowledge, whose dull ear 
finds no voice in nature, who reads without interest 
the histories of past ages; for whom Homer has no 
poetry, Horace no grace, the impetuous questioning 
of Demosthenes no spirit-stirring charm, and the full 
sonorous cadences of Cicero no majestic power; who 
is willing to remain on the asses' side of Euclid's 
bridge ; who takes no more concern in science than 
to cheat his professor in the recitation, and to whom 
the philosophy of mind speaks of what he has not. 



wastes here that time which might be better spent 
in tasks for which his sluggish nature fits him. Let 
him dig, sweep the streets, carry burdens, or, if he 
have fortune, lounge through life that public nui- 
sance, an idle gentleman. No oracle within him 
says — 

. . . . Me gelidum nemus 
Nympharumque leves cum satyris chori 
Secernunt populo * 

Neither parental anxiety nor instructer's skill can 
raise him from the degradation he feels not. 

Let me here also entreat you not to fall into the 
common error of supposing all wealth to consist of 
money or estate, and that he only advances the riches 
of his country, who increases its material commodi- 
ties. If the safes and strong vaults of banks are reck- 
oned among their valuables, if the courthouses and 
prisons of a state be deemed necessary at a large ex- 
pense, and if the wages of labour be estimated cor- 
rectly only by the comforts they can buy; surely they, 
who minister heaUh to the sick by their skill, who 
arrange the moralities of law, who inspire by divine 
counsels the courage of tempted virtue, who write 
with patient pen the friendly volume for the hour of 
leisure, or who explore and meditate upon the laws 
of nature, that they may direct toil to the most ready 
and profitable employment, contribute largely to our 

* Hor. Car. I. 1. 



24 

best possessions. Their harvests never fail, nor can 
the fire consume, nor the tempest destroy the products 
of their industry. But this doctrine has been stated 
to you far better than I can do it, by one to whose 
teachings (hand inexpertus loquor) his pupils love to 
listen. Professor Vethake, in his acute Treatise on 
Political Economy. I cannot speak what I think, 
for he hears me; but I must say, God bless him for 
rescuing the physician, the jurist, the divine, the man 
of letters, and the man of science, out of the same 
category with jugglers and opera dancers, where 
previous economists had placed us as unproductive 
consumers. For such nobler services you are now 
qualifying yourselves, and, if faithful, you shall find 
in them an imperishable reward, the approbation of 
conscience, the esteem of good men, and the bene- 
diction of God. 

There is, my young friends, an advantage you en- 
joy as members of this University, upon which I must 
dwell somewhat at length. I do not now refer to the 
ability and paternal zeal of your instructers. You 
know their worth. Well might they be compared 
with those of any institution of our land, w^ere not 
such comparison invidious, and on this occasion out 
of taste. They need no encomium, and I believe that 
you will long regard them with affectionate gratitude. 
That, of which I would now speak, is the privilege 
you have of residing within the bosom of your fami- 
lies, while you prosecute your academic studies. 



25 

Most of our colleges are situate in remote towns, 
where, consequently, the youth, who enter them, are 
compelled to live in cloisters and commons; a perni- 
cious and unnatural custom, which has come down 
to us from the dark ages. It would certainly be ac- 
counted an absurd proposition, of a hundred or more 
lads, from fifteen to twenty years of age, to leave the 
parental roof, and combine to keep, what is termed 
Bachelors' Hall, away from a father's eye, a mother's 
care and a sister's love. Yet what better is the ar- 
rangement to which I allude, and to the effects of 
which so many persons consign their offspring? It 
may be said, that they are placed under the guardian- 
ship of wise and good men, and secluded also from 
the temptations to vice which abound in cities. But 
are the occasional meetings, and periodical visits to 
their dormitories, of a studious man, however faith- 
fully inclined, and sleeping withal in the same build- 
ing, a compensation for the moral restraints of home, 
its sacred threshold and guarded repose? Is vice con- 
fined to our larger towns? or is it not true, that where 
vicious appetite craves indulgence there will be venal 
profligacy to grant it? Is there not danger of conta- 
mination when a youth, at the age when he feels the 
strength of recent passions most, and is the least 
prepared to resist them, has been thrown into imme- 
diate contact and unrestrained communication with 
ill-taught or ill-disposed companions, already familiar 
with vice? 



26 

Dedit banc contagio labem, 
Et dabit in plures ; sicut grex totus in agris, 
TJnius scabie cadit, et porrigine porci; 
Uvaque conspecta livorem ducit ab uva.* 

Nay, will not a natural impatience of espionage, 
however tenderly exercised, prompt a wish to elude 
it? Not one of us, who have had experience of such 
college life, but could tell sad stories of ready means 
to cheat tutors, and turn the war adroitly upon them; 
of festive meetings, if not worse practices, within a 
few yards of the honest men's beds, and midnight ex- 
cursions through the unwatched door to haunts of sin 
without. Not one of us, but has seen companions, 
who came ingenuous and blushing from their pure 
homes, turned by the influence of evil example into 
brazen profligates, and lost to virtue forever. There 
have been, it is true, many instances of general reli- 
gious good among students in cofleges, for which we 
should give God thanks; but an argument from this 
in their favour is, at the least, of doubtful propriety. 
It was the conservative influence of the Holy Spirit 
overruling error for good, and affords no sufficient 
warrant for encountering an obvious danger. 

Parents, who become impatient of the anxious 
care their sons require, and are aware of their own 
deficiencies, though they take no pains to do better, 
are readily brought to think that they can obtain for 

* Juv. Sat. II. 78—81. 



27 

them a better guardianship in such institutions. In 
this some are right; I mean those who cannot deny 
themselves selfish pleasures for their children's good, 
and who cannot refrain from luxurious excess in their 
very homes, so that by their own families, ^''pudenda 
dictu spedantur.''^ Well might Quintillian say, for 
such people, who were common in his day, and not al- 
together unknown in ours, " Utinam liberorum nostro- 
rum mores non ipsi perderemus.^''* But where paren- 
tal responsibility is felt, and a pious anxiety to train 
up souls born unto them, by precept, government and 
example, for usefulness here and heaven hereafter, it 
is a most grave error to suppose that any asylum is 
so safe for youth as home, or any guardianship so 
effectual as that which God in nature and his word 
has ordained. A young lad, who can steal out from 
his father's dwelling at .night to practice his vice, 
and afterward meet his mother's loving eye and his 
sister's pure embrace without compunction, is already 
lost beyond any power, short of Almighty grace, to 
reform. Any change of circumstances must be for 
the worse. 

Besides, I ask of parents who thus (except where 
necessity compels,) send their children to boarding 
schools and colleges where the cloister system pre- 
vails, what right they have, from indolence or any 
other motive, to invent contrivances to alter the or- 

* Quin. Ins. Orat. I. 2. 



28 

der of nature and providence? How dare they dele- 
gate to others that sacred office, most resembhng 
His own, which God by giving them offspring has 
made theirs? When God places an infant in a mo- 
ther's arms, he says more plainly than in words, 
"Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay 
thee thy wages;" and to every father, who sees the 
first gleaming of immortal intelligence in the face of 
his babe, he sends as emphatic command to walk be- 
fore that soul as its guide and guard. How can they, 
without treason against Heaven, send them beyond 
their sight and reach at the most critical period of 
life? Where in the Book of God can they find per- 
mission so to do? Where can they read any excep- 
tions allowed to the duty of a personal superinten- 
dence and exertion? How shall they acquit them- 
selves in the judgment of having caused the evils 
that may result from such an abandonment of their 
charge? 

A pious and eloquent prelate (Jeremy Taylor), in 
his Considerations upon the Infancy of Jesus, has 
earnestly exhorted Christian mothers to follow the 
example of the Virgin Mary in nursing their children; 
and even his enhghtened mind acquired some argu- 
ments for that duty, from a discourse of a heathen 
philosopher (Favorinus) with his friend, which has 
been preserved by Aulus Gellius.* Both insist that 

* Noctes AtticsB, XII. 1. 



29 

she, from whom the child derives its natural nourish- 
ment, is the mother both in character and affection, 
rather than the one who brought it forth. iEsop, in 
Phsedrus, illustrates the same truth in his fable of 
the lamb seeking its foster dam among the goats. 
(Facit parentes bonitas, non necessitas.*) But may not 
the argument be carried farther with even greater 
force? Do not parents lose their claim to filial duty 
and affection, by giving over their children's growing 
years and expanding character to the disposition of 
others? Need they wonder if those children should 
grow up unlike them in every thing but name, fea- 
ture, and the unloving indifference with which they 
repay early neglect? 

Some writers on education have thought, that the 
sending of a young lad to a distant school or college, 
is of use to give him a more manly temper, and an 
early habit of relying upon himself, from the neces- 
sity of maintaining his own in such a miniature 
world; while on the other hand he is likely to grow 
up soft, indolent, and timid, in the indulgence and 
retirement of home. Mr. Locke (if I remember 
rightly) thinks that the influence of sisters upon bro- 
thers is particularly hurtful in this respect, and urges 
their separation, lest the girls should become hoi- 
denish, and the boys effeminate. Their theory, both 
as to its ends and means, is directly in the face of 

* Fab. III. 15. 



30 

the social constitution God has ordained for us. It 
might do, if our youth were to be trained up like 
those of Sparta, mere brutish machines, insensible to 
any gentler emotions than pride of warlike strength 
and a false love of country. But the cultivation of 
moral affections is, above all, important to form the 
character of a Christian gentleman, the friend of 
man, and the servant of God. Love should ever be, 
as it.was in Eden, as it shall be in heaven, the ruling 
principle of our nature, and engaged first and con- 
stantly in the service of education. The softer and 
the stronger qualities should be developed together. 
It might be injurious to his character if the youth 
were shut up entirely with women. He needs a 
man's example and a man's control. But we have 
the authority of God for asserting, that "it is not 
good for man to be alone." It is as true of his 
younger life, as of his maturity. The same female 
influence, which is the conservative charm of man- 
hood, softening our manners, nor suffering us to be 
savage and selfish, must be impressed upon the 
growing soul, if we would have it complete in hu- 
man beauty. Man was not complete until feminine 
graces were added to masculine strength. He was 
as the rock without verdure, the oak without its 
foliage, and the lyre before it is tuned. How beau- 
tifully does this appear in a well-regulated home? 
When the gentleness of a mother's counsel prevail 
not, the father's deeper voice may enforce ; when the 



31 

father's rougher hand has fretted the sensitiveness of 
the young heart, the mother's nicer instincts apply 
the balm to the healthful irritation. In either case, 
parental authority founds its right in gratitude, and 
asks obedience as the proof of love. But the duty 
of the mother is the earlier and stronger. The child 
grew nearer to her heart, and the youth is more 
under her eye. He receives more from her than 
from his father. (^Ex matris etiam corpore et animo 
recens indoles conjiguratur*) From whom did the 
Gracchi derive their eloquence ?t From whom the 
young Timothy his knowledge of the truth ? Nay, 
I need not quote examples, for they are too many 
not to be obvious. 

Happy too is that young man who has grown 
up in the society of sisters emulous of a mother's 
purity and grace ! They refine his heart, his 
thought, and his manners. Grossness of imagina- 
tion recoils upon him as an insult to them. Fe- 
male character is to him, for their sakes, almost a 
holy thing. The flowers which they nurture, or ar- 
range in harmonious groups, shed perfume around 
his home, and the melodies of their young joy, 
breathed from the sweetest instrument human ear 
has ever heard, a female voice, fill its atmosphere 



* Favor, ap. Aul. Gell. 

t Legimus epistolas CornelisB, matris Gracchorum; apparet, filios non 
tarn in gremio educates, quam in sermone matris. — Cic. Brut, 58. 



32 

with music, winning him from external temptation; 
or, as they lean upon his arm and fondly look up to 
him for protection, he learns the blessedness of man's 
strength in supporting the weak and guarding the 
precious. 

Sadly different is the ordinary experience of a youth 
boarding in a distant college. Some natural tears he 
may shed on leaving the loved familiar groupe, but he 
is not without something of the prodigal's satisfaction, 
at venturing forth from the restraints of the parental 
roof. He finds himself among new companions, and 
under a new discipline. The lesson, the precept, the 
warning come from the lips and authority of strangers, 
backed by stern laws and severe penalties. Venera- 
ble his teachers may be, and kindly faithful in dispo- 
sition and deportment, yet do they rarely succeed in 
making him regard them other than as masters whom 
he has not learned to love, and obeys chiefly because 
he fears them. They watch him, or profess to watch 
him, by night and by day, and public opinion among 
his fellows pronounces them natural enemies, whom 
it is clever to deceive, while conscience chides him 
not for ingratitude. All the week he is urged by them 
through difficult studies, and religion is associated in 
his mind with prayer at morning twilight in a cold 
chapel, black marks for absences, and Sunday sermons 
pronounced by the same voice, which the day before 
had cross-examined him on Fluxions, or rated him for 
errors in Prosody. No chastened pleasures await his 



33 

leisure hours. They are spent in rough horse-play, in 
prurient conversation, in concealed dissipation, or idle 
lounging, — in just such a manner as youth, who think 
themselves men while yet they are boys, might be ex- 
pected to spend them. How different is the commons- 
table, often ill served, except immediately before the 
presiding officer, from the pleasing family board with 
its natural courtesies and confiding interchange of 
thought! No lady's eye overlooks them as they 
scramble like boors for the hasty meal. No woman's 
tidy hand has arranged their wardrobes, and no ap- 
proving smile rewards and encourages decency of 
dress and carriage. A college student's wardrobe! 
What a collection it is of toeless stockings, buttonless 
wristbands, and uncared-for rents, some mothers can 
tell who have examined the trunk they saw packed 
so neatly a few months before. A college student's 
room — shared perchance with one to whom neatness 
is an unknown quality ; its littered, unscrubbed, un- 
carpeted floor; its confused and broken furniture; its 
close atmosphere heated by a greasy stove and redo- 
lent of tobacco; its bed a lounging-place by day, 
whose pillows have never been shaken or its sheets 
smoothed by other than the college porter, who inter- 
mitted for such ministry the carrying of wood or the 
blacking of boots; its dim panes festooned with an- 
cient cobwebs, through which the noonday sun looks 
yellow as in a London fog, — it is indescribable as 
chaos. Wo to him whom sickness seizes in such an 



34 

abode! Kind nurses he may have, but how rough! 
and with what heavy tread, and strange notions of 
the materia medical Vainly does the fevered eye look 
around for mother, or sister, or time-honoured ser- 
vant! Vainly does the fevered thirst crave the grate- 
ful drink their hands once pressed to his lips, when 
sick at home ! There is none to sprinkle the fragrant 
spirit on his brow, or bathing his feet in the attem- 
pered water, to wipe them dry and wrap them warm. 
Alas! poor youth; he has a mother, he has sisters, 
he has a home, where kindness might have made a 
luxury of sickness — but they have sent him away to 
suffer among strangers. 

Can it be, my friends, that such slipshod, unkempt, 
out-of-elbowed, bearish young men are the sons of 
our respectable families in a course of education to 
be gentlemen, and to take their place in polite soci- 
ety? Can it be that well-bred Christian parents have 
wilfully thrust them forth into such associations and 
dangers? Yes, some of them have gone from our 
own city, where one of the best collegiate institutions 
in the land is at their fathers' door. Shame upon the 
Philadelphians who thus dishonour what they should 
foster with a jealous care ! Congratulate yourselves, 
young gentlemen, that you are not among them, and 
that God has given you fathers and mothers who 
need not deny you, and will not, the sacred comforts 
of home, while you enjoy all the advantages of tho- 
rough instruction from those who may consult the 



35 

parental heart in the exercise of discipHne, and in- 
voke parental anxiety to assist them in watching 
over your moral and intellectual welfare. 

For my part, I look upon boarding schools, whether 
for girls or boys, and boarding colleges, with the same 
feehngs with which I look upon a foundling hospital. 
The inmates may be of a larger growth, but almost as 
unnaturally abandoned. There may be those among 
them, who are better guarded than they would have 
been under their parents' watch; but they are to be 
pitied for their perilous and uncomfortable lot. Cir- 
cumstances may compel parents to send their off- 
spring from home, and in such cases we must allow 
the force of the classic maxim — '^ Necessitas . . . . 
guicquid cogit, excusat.'''' But I would entreat them, 
whenever it is possible, to place their sons in worthy 
families, where a lady sits at the head of the table, 
and her influence is felt in the sacredness of a house- 
hold. 



My young friends, one parting counsel more and I 
have done. Life to you is full of promise, and may 
its best blessings be yours ! The esteem of the good, 
deserved by a wise and generous devotion to the in- 
terests of society, and the approving consciousness 
of well-spent time, are indeed rich rewards, that may 
well excite your determined zeal. But life is short. 



36 

Our duties and our pleasures here shall soon (who 
can tell how soon?) terminate in the grave. The au- 
tumnal season has a parable for us, and the voice of 
the dying year, as it moans through the leafless trees, 
speaks to the meditative mind in the mournful cadence 
of that eloquent participle we have no word to trans- 
late, " Tu quoque moriture !" Yet we shall not altoge- 
ther die. We are children of immortality. There is 
another life than this, another Judge than man, ano- 
ther ordeal than human opinion. We shall be profit- 
ed nothing if we gain the whole world and lose our 
souls. Blessed be God ! He has had compassion upon 
our need and danger. .Jesus Christ his only begotten 
Son, our Lord, is the Friend, the Advocate and Bro- 
ther of all who trust in his love. He himself has 
walked the sands of life's desert, that, guided by his 
holy footsteps, we may find the way to that better 
land whither he has gone before us. He himself has 
fought the battles of life's temptations, that we might 
know Him to be ready to succour us when we are 
tempted. He, the babe of Bethlehem, the youth be- 
fore whom in the temple the boast of hoary wisdom 
was dumb, loves the grateful confidence of a young 
heart. Seek Him earnestly. Look to Him always ; 
and whatever be your lot in this passing scene, glory, 
honour and immortality shall be yours, when, over 
earth and the years that revolve around it, the wa- 
ters of an eternal deep shall have rolled its engulph- 
ing waves. 



37 
Remember, also, that with all the advantages by 
which your fortunate youth is surrounded, you are, 
under God, the disposers of your own future interest. 
Your success for time and eternity depends upon 
your faithfulness to yourselves. Difficulties must be 
yours; but they are ever occasions of greater glory 
or of greater shame. I take, then, my leave of you 
with the words of the Gods' fabled messenger to Pro- 
metheus : 

Be mindful, now you cannot err unwarned ; 
Nor lay the blame on Fate, nor think that God 
Afflicts his creatures from a blind caprice : 
The fault is yours alone ; if, by neglect 
Infatuate, you have wrapt the fatal net 
Of sin inextricable 'round your feet.* 

Or in the better language of Christ's apostle, 
"Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for 

* The translation I give is free, but the attentive reader of the original 
can hardly fail to trace a strong parallel between the idea of the Greek poet 
and that of the Christian apostle, St. James, I. 13, 14, 15. 

A'ax' ouv /mifjivna^B' a-yd ■TrpoKiyo)- 

Jl'c Zsuc Cjua? til CLTrpoovrov 

M>t <f«T', oLuTcti J" v/ua; avTa;, 

OliSi xaBp^Liaii 

Et; uTrifityTDV J'utvov utxc 

E'jM;rx«;^6«Vs79' Jit' dvaittc- 

iEschylus, Prom. Vine. 1071—9. 



38 

when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, 
which the Lord has promised to them that love him. 
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted 
of God. For God cannot be tempted of evil. Nei- 
ther tempteth he any man." 

May the victory and the crown be given to you 
all! 



^S^Si* 



o-jraas 




